General Discussion Poker Forums

...or (more practically) learning to not care about it!

I’m currently reading through Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb which, although it has had mixed reviews, I am quite enjoying at the moment. There have been a few sections of the book which apply strongly to Poker theory so far and the following is probably the one that holds most true with me. If Tommy Angelo has already written something very similar to this (which, let’s face it, he probably has) then I apologise!

In the previous chapter to the following story Taleb writes of a scientific theory where humans have a two-and-a-half times stronger negative emotion to a loss than a positive emotion to a win. i.e. losing $1,000 will hurt 2.5x more than a $1,000 win will please despite the amount being the exact same. Although he is mostly writing about traders throughout the book I can definitely relate to this as a poker player as I am sure many of you can too.

Taleb then goes on to tell the story of a “happily retired dentist” who puts together a trading portfolio with an expected “15% return and 10% volatility (or uncertainty) per annum”. According to the author this translates into a 93% chance of success in any given year. However, in a narrower period of time the chance of success in that period will obviously be a lot smaller:

1 year = 93%
1 quarter = 77%
1 month = 67%
1 day = 54%
1 hour = 51.3%
1 minute = 50.2%

If the dentist checks how his portfolio is doing every minute during an eight hour day he will experience 241 “winning” minutes to 239 “losing” minutes. Now if we marry this to the above paragraph about the 2.5x greater emotional response to losing we can see that the dentist will be an emotional wreck by the end of the day. Further more if he continues to do this eight hours a day, every day for a year his will end up having 60,688 pleasurable minutes to 60,271 unpleasurable minutes throughout the twelve months. Again, with the greater emotional impact of losing, overall it’s not going to be a very enjoyable time for him.

If the dentist looks at his portfolio just once at the end of the month, however, he will receive eight uplifting experiences to just four pangs of pain. If he looks at this portfolio just once a year over the next twenty years he will experience 19 pleasant years for every unpleasant one.

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Relating this to Poker is easy enough but taking the author’s advice literally is very much harder to take. We have to check our bottom line! We have to know how big our bankroll is. So, we need to find another option – emotional control. We have to squash that 2.5x figure down, or attempt eradicate it altogether. Clarkatroid did an excellent blog post on this, I thought. Meeting success and failure with equal measure. Easier said than done though.

All-in-all it's pretty well documented that we shouldn't take too much heart in short term results and always think long term. I bet a lot of people struggle with this one though (myself included).

(pre-emptive) EPTPE

I wish I could stop mentally keeping track of how much I'm up or down in a session. It's like an itch to click the cashier page every 10min or after every decent sized pot and take a look at my money. So hard to stop myself

Great OP.

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_aversion
http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//essays/uncert/aversion.htm

I wish I could stop mentally keeping track of how much I'm up or down in a session. It's like an itch to click the cashier page every 10min or after every decent sized pot and take a look at my money. So hard to stop myself

I actually keep a running tally while I'm playing.....unconsciously? I know it's terrible, and I try to ignore it but I just can't stop! Even when I'm 16 tabling I know how much I am up/down in a session within 1/2 of a bi. I have gotten out of the habit of checking HEM or Cashier while I'm playing but I usually go straight to it when I'm done with a session. If anyone has any good articles or specific videos or readings to help with this that would be wonderful! It really is terrible!

I actually keep a running tally while I'm playing.....unconsciously? I know it's terrible, and I try to ignore it but I just can't stop! Even when I'm 16 tabling I know how much I am up/down in a session within 1/2 of a bi. I have gotten out of the habit of checking HEM or Cashier while I'm playing but I usually go straight to it when I'm done with a session. If anyone has any good articles or specific videos or readings to help with this that would be wonderful! It really is terrible!

I used to have the same problem. I'm not really sure what made me stop and I still check it once in a blue moon (if I suspect I'm up a ton for the session), but I'm pretty sure reading The Poker Mindset helped me a TON. It really made me focus on the specific situation and decision in front of me rather than my results. Also breathing and being aware really helps (EPTPE imo). All it really comes down to is being more focused on the hand you're playing than the $ in your account.

I wish I could stop mentally keeping track of how much I'm up or down in a session. It's like an itch to click the cashier page every 10min or after every decent sized pot and take a look at my money. So hard to stop myself

I do that exact same thing. Especially when i make a bad play or get coolered. I guess it means this guy is right.

If anyone has any good articles or specific videos or readings to help with this that would be wonderful! It really is terrible!

Sadly, nothing that anyone else writes or produces will give you a magic bullet to deal with this. You just have to make an agreement with yourself to not look at these things more than X often and then honor it. Unfortunately, self-discipline can't be taught as a technique, only encouraged. I struggle with this, too.

Sadly, nothing that anyone else writes or produces will give you a magic bullet to deal with this. You just have to make an agreement with yourself to not look at these things more than X often and then honor it. Unfortunately, self-discipline can't be taught as a technique, only encouraged. I struggle with this, too.

Xanax?

just kidding. i'm awful about it even though it doesn't matter. before HEM i would check the cashier all the time. now i pull it up whether winning or losing. gotta quit that sh!t.

Awesome OP, thank you

will try to look a lot less!

definitely true

I find for myself I don't even bother looking at HEM (sometimes for days on end) when i know i'm winning but when I'm losing I look much more often(several times mid session)...which compounds the mental stress since the losses hurt worse and i'm looking at the loss more often.

WoT

scientific theory where humans have a two-and-a-half times stronger negative emotion to a loss than a positive emotion to a win. i.e. losing $1,000 will hurt 2.5x more than a $1,000 win will please despite the amount being the exact same.

This is obviously a bit of symplification. I can promise you that losing 1000$ in a day doesn't hurt at all if you made ten times as much the previous day.

definitely true

I find for myself I don't even bother looking at HEM (sometimes for days on end) when i know i'm winning but when I'm losing I look much more often(several times mid session)...which compounds the mental stress since the losses hurt worse and i'm looking at the loss more often.

WoT

I do exactly the opposite. I only look when I'm up